33 
>y 1 



TH£ 

HISTORIC COLLEGE 



ITS PRESENT PLACE IN THE EDUCATIONAL 

SYSTEM 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BY 



WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER 



UPON HIS INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT OF 
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, JUNE 28, 1893 

WITH THE EXERCISES ATTENDING 
THE INAUGURATION 



THE 

HISTORIC COLLEGE 

ITS PRESENT PLACE IN THE EDUCATIONAL 

SYSTEM 

AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BY 1 

WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER 



UPON HIS INAUGURATION AS PRESIDENT OF 
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, JUNE 28, 1893 



WITH THE EXERCISES ATTENDING 
THE INAUGURATION 



HANOVER, N. H. 

PRINTED FOR THE COLLEGE 

1894 



Ui 



Ilk 



t*f EXCHANGR 



EXERCISES OF THE INAUGURATION. 



The marshal of the day, the Reverend Howard F. Hill, 
Ph. D., of the class of 1867, formed the inaugural pro- 
cession of students, alumni, and invited guests in front of 
Dartmouth Hall at 10.30 a. m. At the college church 
the Reverend Alonzo H. Quint, D. D., of the class of 
1846, the senior member of the Board of Trustees, took 
the chair, and the exercises of the inauguration proceeded 
in the order in which they now appear, with music at ap- 
propriate times from Baldwin's Band of Boston. 

PRAYER BY THE REVEREND SAMUEL C. BARTLETT, D. D., 
EX-PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE. 

Great and eternal God, our heavenly Father, look down 
upon us in love as we are here assembled in the interests 
of thy kingdom. Thou art our God and our fathers' God, 
and thou, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, art the same 
yesterday, to-day, and forever. We come and we go, but 
thou abidest. We begin our work, and we end it soon, 
but thou workest on from age to age, unhindered by the 
limits of time, the lack of means, or the urgency of haste. 
And we rejoice that we may ally ourselves to that great 
and benign enterprise of thine in this fallen world of ours, 
which is founded in thy love, upheld by thy might, and 
guaranteed by the word and the oath of God, that one 
central movement in the world's ongoings which, amid all 
other failures and overthrows and wrecks, holds on its 
way to victory and triumph, the everlasting kingdom of 
our Lord and his Christ. 

We thank thee, O Lord, that in the generations past 



4 EXERCISES OF THE INAUGURATION. 

thou didst establish here a distant outpost of thy kingdom, 
and hast made it a stronghold and an aggressive force. 
Thou didst here set up the old landmark, not to be re- 
moved. The feeble beginning, undertaken in faith and 
carried on with the patience of hope and the labor of love, 
thou hast made strong by thy presence and benefaction ; 
and the choice vine, once planted in the unbroken forest, 
thou hast caused to send forth its fruitful branches 
through the land, and twine its tendrils round the globe. 

We thank thee, O Lord, for the incalculable blessings 
with which this college in its long life has been freighted. 
We thank thee for the good men and true, its faithful 
guardians, that have held it fast to its origin and aim ; for 
the long and noble array of conscientious teachers who 
have set their lasting mark upon the passing generations ; 
and for the thousands that have gone forth hence in the 
ardor of youthful strength and zeal, to fill to their full- 
ness the useful and honorable callings of life, many of 
whom remain unto this present, but the greater part are 
fallen asleep and have gone to their reward. 

And now we come to invoke thy blessing upon the 
whole future of this institution. Thou hast brought it in 
past times through hard struggles, great difficulties, and 
grave perils to a condition of unbroken prosperity and 
hope. Thou hast greatly enlarged its power for good. 
Thou hast united the wishes and interest of its friends 
upon thy servant, its president elect ; thou hast persuaded 
and inclined him hither, and art now opening before him 
a sphere and promise of eminent usefulness. Go with 
him, hold him with thy right hand, guide him with thine 
eye, and gird him with thy strength to meet the expecta- 
tions, perform the duties, and bear the heavy burdens, 
cares, and responsibilities of his high office. May he fos- 
ter and share a better work than any of his predecessors. 
Spare his life and strength for a long and prosperous ad- 
ministration. May he be enabled to hold the institution 



EXERCISES OF THE INAUGURATION. 5 

firmly to its ancient moorings of sound learning and thor- 
ough training, consecrated by true piety and dedicated to 
the Master's cause. May all the friends of the college 
gather to his support, both with good words and better 
deeds. Through him and his associates may the best 
teaching and the best examples be transmitted to the 
generations to come ; and may the venerable college be- 
come more and more venerable with years, and learning, 
and helpfulness to the kingdom of Christ, till the king- 
dom and the dominion and the greatness of the kingdom 
under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of 
the saints of the Most High, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. 

PRESENTATION OF THE CHARTER OF THE COLLEGE TO THE 
PRESIDENT ELECT BY THE REVEREND ALONZO H. QUINT, D. D., 
IN BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 

I have the honor to hold in my hand the charter of 
Dartmouth College. It was dated on the thirteenth day 
of December, seventeen hundred and sixty-nine. It bears 
the autograph of John Wentworth, the then royal gov- 
ernor of the Province of New Hampshire, in behalf of 
George the Third, then king of Great Britain ; and it 
was countersigned by Theodore Atkinson, secretary of 
the province. It mentions the great work already done 
by Eleazar Wheelock, and it gives to him, with eleven 
others whom it names, the powers of a perpetual corpora- 
tion. It specifies a twofold object, — on the one hand, to 
give the knowledge of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 
to " the savages of our American wilderness ; " on the 
other, " that the best means of education be established 
in our Province." An allusion in the charter intimates 
a sad forecast of the fate of the Indian, and accordingly, 
for its second object, the scope of the college is made so 
broad as to include " all liberal arts and sciences," while 
its officials are to have powers " as fully and freely as any 



6 EXERCISES OF THE INAUGURATION. 

one of the officers and ministers in our universities or 
colleges in our realm of Great Britain." 

Scarcely one of the persons named in this parchment 
was living a hundred years ago. But institutions are not 
dependent upon particular men's lives. The college con- 
tinues. Men illustrious for ability and devotion have 
successively given their lives to its service. It has re- 
ceived the benefactions of liberal men and women. It 
has had the prayers of godly Christian people, and espe- 
cially of fathers and mothers who have placed their sons 
under its care. Seven thousand young men have gone 
out from its halls into the active work of their respective 
generations, and never has the prophecy of its future been 
brighter than at this hour. 

It was without a single misgiving that the trustees sum- 
moned you to the headship of this college, and it was with 
great happiness that they received your final acceptance. 
Acting in their behalf, and speaking in their name, I 
place in your hands this massive gold emblem, given by 
an eminent citizen of London in the last century to be- 
long to the presidential office. But more especially I 
commit to you this charter, with all that it signifies, — its 
history, its honor, its responsibilities, and its opportuni- 
ties, — committing it to you, beloved son of your Alma 
Mater, President of Dartmouth College. 

ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHARTER BY THE PRESIDENT ELECT. 

Gentlemen of the Board of Trust, — I accept 
the charter of the college which has now been put into 
my keeping by the hand of your chairman. I accept it 
with profound and unqualified respect, and it will be my 
purpose to maintain and fulfill its intention honestly and 
impartially during the period of my administration. In 
this purpose I am assured of your cooperation. 



EXERCISES OF THE INAUGURATION. 



ADDRESS IN BEHALF OF THE ALUMNI BY MELVIN 0. ADAMS, 
ESQ., OF THE CLASS OF 1871, PRESIDENT OF THE ALUMNI 
ASSOCIATION. 

Mr. President, — In a larger sense, the body which 
I have the honor to represent here has already spoken ; 
but, if anything more were needed to give it a place in 
this historic day, my brief word shall put it there. I 
have observed with deep interest the ancient and revered 
charter of the college, made glorious among all English- 
speaking peoples by the eloquent and tender devotion of 
one of her most distinguished sons, and now for the first 
time actually seen by many of us, placed in your hands 
and keeping ; but, let me remind you, we did not come 
with the charter. Strictly speaking, we are not of it. 
Rather are we the product of that loyalty to duty of your 
distinguished predecessors, and of the teaching force of a 
no less honored faculty. 

The previous incumbents of your high office have had 
much to do with us ; but to-day, by right, we have some- 
thing to do with you, — a right not obtained by artifice, 
trick, or pretense, but granted to us as the result of the 
best thought of the times. With this right there comes 
however, an added responsibility, indicated as it is by an 
intensified interest in the institution and yourself. And 
if, perchance, hereafter your eye dims, your feet falter, 
your hand loses its grip, but for a bit, in the great work 
you have now undertaken, turn to us, make of us, if you 
please, your standing army ; for have we not enlisted 
with you in the cause of perpetuating, ay, of advancing, 
the standard of this dear old college ? And know that to- 
day throughout this entire country, wherever her alumni 
are gathered, beginning with the Pacific and running 
along the entire line to these green New England hills, 
never more beautiful than now as they gleam under the 
welcome sun, they send up from post to post the loyal 
sentry-call, " All is well." 



8 EXERCISES OF THE INAUGURATION. 



RESPONSE BY PRESIDENT TUCKER. 

Mk. President and Brethren of the Alumni, — 
I thank you with full heart for your greeting. The fact 
of which I am most conscious, as I stand before you, is 
that I am an alumnus of the college. The loyalty which 
we share in common has defined my personal duty, and 
placed me in the position which I have now assumed. 

You have been pleased to say, Mr. President, that I 
may call upon the alumni as upon a standing army. It 
is the college which commands us all alike. We will not 
divide the honor of our mutual service. But the pledge 
of your support is the ground of my present action. I 
should not have taken the presidency without the assurance 
of it. No college can thrive without the active, and, if need 
be, self-denying cooperation of its graduates. Dartmouth 
College is now in a peculiar sense in the hands of its 
alumni. The future of the college depends as never be- 
fore upon your wisdom, zeal, and enthusiasm. I congratu- 
late myself that, while I assume no divided responsibility, 
I pass to the presidency at a time when, from the nature 
of the obligations which you have assumed, I have the 
right to expect the loyalty of every son of Dartmouth. 
I accept, Mr. President, your strong and assuring words, 
in the confident faith that they will be found to have ex- 
pressed the abiding sentiment of our fellow-alumni. 

ADDRESS OF WELCOME BY PROFESSOR JOHN K. LORD, PH. D., 
ACTING PRESIDENT OF THE FACULTY. 

In saying a few words this morning in behalf of the 
faculty, I take special pleasure in the fact that I do not 
have to make a welcome, for I do not speak to meet the 
requirements of a programme, or to satisfy the proprieties 
of an occasion, but to express the feelings that rise un- 
bidden and call for utterance. 

When a vacancy occurred in the presidency of the col- 



EXERCISES OF THE INAUGURATION. 9 

lege, our thoughts turned first to you, Sir. For several 
reasons we hoped that you might become our president. 
You were a loyal son of the college, nurtured at the old 
hearthstone, and having, in addition to your acquaintance 
with the college as an alumnus, a thorough knowledge of 
its traditions, needs, and possibilities, coming from your 
long service as a trustee. You were also engaged in the 
practical work of education, and were thoroughly familiar 
with the problems it presents. When you first declined 
your election to the presidency we were greatly disap- 
pointed, though we could but acknowledge the force of 
your reasons. Yet even then we did not entirely cease to 
hope ; and when some of us presented informally to the 
trustees a statement of what we hoped for in the next 
president, our expressions were abstract in form, but our 
thought was concrete in you. We observed that our sis- 
ter institutions in New England, Harvard, Yale, Wil- 
liams, Brown, and Amherst, had taken for their presidents 
practical educators, and we felt that Dartmouth should 
have a president of the same class. Education has be- 
come both a science and an art, and they only can suc- 
cessfully occupy its high positions, meet its problems, and 
administer its affairs, who by long experience have full 
knowledge of its methods and its aims. 

And now that you have come to the presidency we give 
you a cordial welcome. We welcome you, first of all, to 
hard work. From the time when Eleazar Wheelock first I 
lifted up his axe upon the thick trees that stood upon this 1 
common, the presidents of the college have found their 
position one of laborious service. It still demands un- I 
remitting toil, if not of the hands, yet of the head and 
the heart. Your sympathies will be taxed, and all your 
mental energies drawn upon, in the conduct of your office. 

But we welcome you to opportunity. You have left a 
chosen field of labor, where the grain was white for the 
harvest, but you are coming to another of equal oppor- 



10 EXERCISES OF THE INAUGURATION. 

tunity. I do not mean simply the opportunity to foster 
and enlarge an institution which has a noble past, a grand 
present, and a future bright with promise, but the oppor- 
tunity to impress yourself upon those who are to be a 
power in the next generation, to perpetuate yourself in 
their lives. I know of no grander privilege than that of 
making one's life a force in other lives, and of helping 
forward the development of exalted character. Your 
predecessors in office have nobly used this privilege, and 
many in this audience can testify to the inspiration which 
they have gained from them. 

We welcome you, also, to our hearty cooperation. We 
will gladly and loyally follow your leadership. We look 
forward with confidence. We are full of enthusiasm and 
of hope, but we are not unbalanced by the one or daz- 
zled by the other. We see that work is before us, as be- 
fore you, and we will work together. We will retain our 
judgment and give you our best advice, knowing that the 
most loyal supporters are thoughtful and watchful friends. 
President Tucker, we love the college ; we wish that its 
future may surpass its past, and for that end, with strong 
confidence in your wisdom, judgment, and character, we 
pledge you our undivided support. 

RESPONSE BY PRESIDENT TUCKER. 

I assure you, Professor Lord, that in what you have 
said, speaking for yourself and for my future colleagues in 
the faculty, you could have spoken no word more grateful 
to my present personal feeling. In coming to you I have 
broken away from the companionship of men whom for 
the past ten years I have trusted and loved. Until then 
I had not known the significance of such a companion- 
ship. Now I value it beyond any friendship which is pos- 
sible to a man outside the limits of his home. I value, 
therefore, through this experience, the generosity of your 
welcome, as you offer me a place among men toward whom 
I may entertain a like trust and affection. 



EXERCISES OF THE INAUGURATION. 11 

It is a somewhat singular fact that there is no one 
among you whom I knew as a member of the faculty 
when I was a student. Several of those who were then 
upon the faculty are living, but they are in service else- 
where. I had hoped much in all personal ways from the 
return of Professor Patterson to the service of the college, 
the one connecting link between the past of my day and 
the present. With his death the past becomes a memory, 
and I find myself altogether in the presence of men of my 
own or a later generation. 

You have welcomed me to work, — to hard work. I am 
quite sure that you mean what you say. I had not been 
on the ground a week before I found my largest expecta- 
tions realized. But I may as well say to you at once that 
I came with the intent of work for the college, and I trust 
that my presence may prove to be not so much a relieving 
as a stimulating force. An overworked faculty is in a 
sense a wasteful faculty. Unnecessary burdens should be 
removed. The wisest possible distribution of force should 
be made. But nothing, as it seems to me, can take the 
place of strong, persistent, and eager work. It is, as you 
suggest, the opportunity which lends dignity to our tasks, 
and in which we may find ceaseless inspiration. No past 
could be more inspiring than that which we inherit. I 
acknowledge the greatness of the accomplished work which 
I take from the hand of my honored predecessor, and of 
those who wrought with him, and I rejoice in the promise 
of that service which now invites our enthusiasm and devo- 
tion. I ask for no greater honor for myself, nor for you, 
than that we may be found worthy of the long succession 
in which we now take our place. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



THE HISTORIC COLLEGE : ITS PRESENT PLACE IN" THE EDUCA- 
TIONAL SYSTEM. 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, — Some of 
the more careful observers from abroad, who have de- 
scribed our national characteristics, have pointed out one 
exception to the otherwise confident and exuberant tone 
in which we are wont to speak of our institutions. They 
have noted the fact that we fall into the language of 
apology, and even of depreciation, when we refer to our 
higher institutions of learning. The common school sys- 
tem of the country is much exploited in our speech, as 
they observe, on account of its relation to our political 
idea and the working of our political machinery. It is 
when we talk of our colleges and universities that we seem 
to temper our speech under the evident sense of their im- 
maturity. And yet it is at this very point of the higher 
learning that one of our most recent foreign critics bids 
us revise our judgments, and put a different estimate upon 
the relative value of our achievements. " If I may ven- 
ture," Professor Bryce says, " to state the impression 
which the American universities " — under which term he 
includes the more advanced colleges — " have made upon 
me, I will say that while of all the institutions of the coun- 
try they are those of which the Americans speak most 
modestly, and indeed deprecatingly, they are those which 
seem to be at this moment making the swiftest progress, 
and to have the brightest promise'bf the future." : 

1 The American Commonwealth, vol. ii. p. 553. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 13 

I am not unmindful, as I make this quotation, of the 
sweeping criticism of Dr. von Hoist in his address at the 
first convocation of the University of Chicago, 1 to the effect 
that there is in the United States not a single university 
in the sense attached to this word by Europeans, every in- 
stitution bearing this name being a compound or hybrid 
of college and university, or a torso of a university. But 
widely as these critics seem to differ in view, and especially 
in tone, their criticisms are not altogether inconsistent. 
For the immediate point of comparison with Mr. Bryce is 
not the American and European university, but the rate 
of progress which we as a people are now making through 
our colleges and universities compared with the general 
progress of the country. The comparison at this point is, 
I think, unmistakable. The present advance in the edu- 
cational development of the country is far greater than in 
its social or political or even religious development. I 
have elsewhere referred to the present as an educational 
epoch, as distinctly marked as any material or moral epoch 
which may have preceded. Every sign points that way, 
though the most evident signs are not of necessity the 
most significant. Any one can see where the current of 
beneficent wealth is flowing ; any one can see the estab- 
lishment and enlargement of the great schools : but more 
significant than these signs, to those who are in a position 
to discern it, is the spirit of the new scholarship, which 
craves the severest personal discipline, employs the most 
rigorous methods, and is content only with truth at the 
sources ; and more significant still the hunger and thirst 
of the multitude, that growing appetite for knowledge 
among all classes, which is beginning to compete with the 
passion for money. 

Now, among the direct results of this vast educational 
movement, there is one result which, though in a sense of 
secondary importance, claims our special attention, namely, 
1 Published in Educational Review, February, 1893. 



14 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

the re-distribution or re-classification of the higher insti- 
tutions of learning. A process is now going on which is 
testing the capacity, and determining the scope, and fixing 
the relative grade, of these institutions. As clearly as if 
the question was put to each one, what position do you 
propose to take, under what limitations do you propose to 
work, what exact end do you propose to satisfy, the logic 
of events is forcing an answer. Indefiniteness of purpose, 
irresolution, inaction at this time on the part of those in 
control, will certainly cost any existing institution its 
rank, and quite possibly its existence. 

What, then, I ask, as the object of our direct concern, is 
the legitimate place under the new educational conditions 
of the historic college, obviously distinct from the techni- 
cal school, and also distinct, though not as obviously, from 
the university ? I ask the question, of course, in supreme 
thought of our own college, and my answer will fit most 
immediately its conditions. And yet I have in mind, as 
I speak, that large and honorable fellowship in which we 
stand. Dartmouth College belongs to a group of foun- 
dations, now of historic dignity, which have retained the 
name, and which continue to exercise the functions, of the 
college, in distinction from the school of technology or 
the university. With the exception of William and Mary 
College, which divides with Harvard, though at long dis- 
tance, the honors of the seventeenth century, and with the 
possible exception of the College of New Jersey, — my 
doubt here being in regard to the proper classification, not 
as to the date, — Dartmouth is the oldest of this particular 
group. Its charter dates from the provincial era, bearing 
the signature of George III. In close company, however, 
in time, were Rutgers, Hampden-Sydney, Union, Williams, 
— which celebrates its centennial the present year, — 
Bowdoin, and Middlebury, all falling within the last cen- 
tury. These are illustrations of what I have termed the 
historic college. The college idea, the type which they 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 15 

introduced into our American educational economy, has 
shown a remarkable persistence. It reproduces itself 
with little variation in the newer States, and competes not 
unsuccessfully with other types. There are many weak I 
colleges throughout the country, as there are many weak 
educational institutions of every name. But it is doubt- 
less fair to say that the idea is vital and germinant. It 
is a somewhat significant fact that, in the organization of 
the higher education of women, the independent endow- 
ments follow chiefly the college type. 

The question, which I have proposed as to the legiti 
mate place of the historic college in the present educa- 
tional development, may be brought into clearer discussion 
if I divide it, and ask, 

First, What is the essential and permanent characteris- 
tic of the college ? 

Then, What is the capacity of the college to meet the 
widening demands of the new education ? 

And finally, and with special reference to our own en- 
vironment, What relation may a college sustain to associ- 
ated institutions without attempting the functions of a 
university ? 

What is the essential and permanent characteristic of 
the college ? In my conception of it, it is best expressed 
in one word, homogeneity. To say that a college must 
have unity is to say no more than ought to be said of any 
great educational body. A university has a unity as well 
defined as that of a college, but it is made up of heteroge- 
neous elements working in separate ways and towards 
divergent ends. Concessions must be made to these di- 
verse elements, which affect the whole internal economy 
of a university, making it entirely different from that of 
a college. Discipline, for example, is reduced to a mini- 
mum by the elimination of questions which, under other J 
conditions, might be of vital importance. 

The homogeneous character of the college finds an 



16 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

extreme but very expressive illustration in the colleges 
which make up the English universities. An Oxford or 
Cambridge man is such only by second designation. He 
is first of Trinity, Kings, Emmanuel, Oriel, Merton. 
Hence those remarkable groups of young men which have 
been formed from time to time in each university, and out 
of which have sprung many of the greater political and 
religious movements of England. 

The analogy of the colleges in the English universities 
holds good only at a single point. The system itself is 
absolutely unique. But as the college idea was trans- 
planted into American soil, and as each college grew up, 
not in a cluster, but separate and alone, drawing its scanty 
nourishment from its immediate surroundings, and exposed 
to all the vicissitudes of the colonial and early national 
life, the idea which they represented in common was natu- 
rally intensified in the history of each. The New Eng- 
land college took its own strength and its own shape from 
the circumstances of its origin and development. 

As I am to speak altogether of the historic colleges, 
which are still colleges and expect to remain such, I may 
make a passing reference to those colleges, most of them 
of even an earlier date, which have exchanged, or are now 
exchanging, the college idea for that of the university. 
The change on their part seems to me to be entirely justi- 
fiable because natural, or in some way necessary. It is 
being wrought out by them under conditions which make 
it feasible, or in response to demands which express an 
obligation. Most of them occupy central positions, repre- 
sent various interests, and are already equipped for the 
initial work of a university. And yet I count it of untold 
value that these ancient colleges, which with our heartiest 
godspeed are now parting company with us on the way 
to their own future, were permeated and possessed in 
their growing life by the college ideal. And as compared 
with institutions whose foundations are now being laid on 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 17 

another level, and which are never to be known as having 
been other than universities, there are, I believe, compen- 
sations and advantages which will grow more rather than 
less apparent in favor of those institutions which are 
reaching the same level through a college history. 

The causes which have been operative in preserving to 
the colleges, of which I am to speak, their essential char- 
acteristic are not remote, nor difficult to find. They may 
be said to exist as much in their history as in their idea, 
except as the idea made the history. Indeed, it is to be 
assumed that this homogeneity is due in part to moral 
causes, and that it is to be maintained in part through 
these causes. 

Perhaps the most evident cause of their continued 
homogeneity has been the perpetuation in some form of 
the original impulse. The colleges originated in a common 
impulse. Broadly stated, the impulse was religious, the i 
force, that is, behind the colleges was the spirit of conse- 
cration, of service, and of sacrifice. Most of them were es- 
tablished to carry on the Christian ministry, because that 
seemed at the time to be the channel of the best service. 
Dartmouth College was a graft upon a missionary stock. 
The pilgrimage of that early Indian preacher over the 
seas, bearing his letters to George Whitefield, introduced 
to the Earl of Dartmouth and other English philanthro- 
pists, and gaining an audience with his Majesty the king, 
has become the romance of our history. But in its time 
it was no romance. The result of that pilgrimage was ten 
thousand pounds, the name which the college bears, and 
the interest and goodwill which secured the charter. The 
charter itself bears the impress alike of the political saga- 
city of John Wentworth and the apostolic zeal of Eleazar 
Wheelock. It is at once broad and serious, fully abreast 
of the present in its spirit of intellectual freedom, and 
glowing still with the religious feeling which inspired it. 

What was true of Dartmouth was equally true, though 

2 



18 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

in a less picturesque way, of the other colleges, and one 
distinction which they have since had in common has been 
the perpetuation in some definite form of this original im- 
pulse. I do not for a moment deny the utmost seriousness 
of purpose or earnestness of endeavor to any class of edu- 
cational institutions. I arrogate nothing unreal or arbi- 
trary in the name of religion. But there is a clear differ- 
ence in the method and in the result of intellectual 
training, as you strike at the beginning the religious note, 
or the note of utility, or the note of culture. In other 
words, the college differs widely from the technical school, 
and measurably from the university, in the provision 
which it allows and makes for the working of the reli- 
gious element. I am aware that the presence of this ele- 
ment may give rise from time to time to vexing questions 
of administration. In respect to these contingencies I 
have little concern. For the principle of action is clear 
both on its negative and positive side. Religion must not 
be set to do the menial tasks of the college, it must not be 
made an instrument of discipline, it must not become 
through any kind of indifference the repository of obso- 
lete opinions or obsolete customs, it must not fall below 
the intellectual level of the college, it must not be used to 
maintain any artificial relation between the college and 
its constituency. Religion justifies the traditions which 
give it place within the college, as it enforces the spirit of 
reverence and humility, as it furnishes the rational ele- 
ment to faith, as it informs duty with the sufficient mo- 
tive, and lends the sufficient inspiration to ideals of service, 
and as it subdues and consecrates personal ambition to the 
interests of the common humanity. The college fulfills an 
office which no man, I take it, will question, as it trans- 
lates the original and constant religious impulse into 
terms of current thought and action, making itself a cen- 
tre oi* spiritual light, of generous activities, and, above all, 
of a noble intellectual and religious charity. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 19 

Another cause contributing to the homogeneous charac- 
ter of the historic college is to be found in the limits of 
its constituency. The actual area covered by the college 
is more restricted than that of the university. A college 
is in its very nature a localized institution, bounded either 
by territorial limits or by the reach of its working idea. 
The constituency, therefore, of a given college is a constant 
quantity. It cannot even be transferred to a neighboring 
institution. If any college in the group to which we be- 
long should go out of existence, there would be a very 
considerable and irretrievable loss. But, as I have said, a 
college may be localized by its territory, or by its working 
idea. This latter distinction may give it an extended, 
while it gives it also an assured, constituency. Williams 
College, for example, is without a territory, but it has its 
idea. My friend, President Carter, is in the habit of say- 
ing, as the college sends out a class, that he does not know . 
where the next class will come from, or whether it will j 
come at all. The college of Hopkins and Garfield and j 
Armstrong can never want for a constituency. There is 
an invisible realm over which a college holds sway by the 
power of its traditions and history, the names of its nobler 
alumni, the ideals which it puts forth, the work which it 
is seen to accomplish. No man can define these outer 
possessions, but they are a part of the growing inheritance. 
Students are drawn, not simply by solicitation, but more 
surely by affinity. Like begets like. A constituency 
once established, wherever it may be, reproduces itself in 
steadfast loyalty, and reacts upon the college to preserve 
its essential character. 

And it is because of this power of a college to protect - 
its life, and to extend its influence by the force of its 
working idea, that I do not share the fears entertained by 
some as to the future of our New England colleges under 
the changes in the home population. The colleges them- 
selves have very much to say, if they will, as to what the 



20 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

real nature of the change is to be. They are not hope- 
lessly dependent upon the old stock, if they have the in- 
sight to interpret and the patience to develop the new. 
History teaches the lesson, which no educated man should 
allow himself to ignore, that in the order of Providence it 
is the privilege of great institutions, like the church and 
the school, to replenish and invigorate their life by the 
constant introduction of new and undeveloped material. 
Not the chosen races alone, but the gentile, the alien, the 
barbarian, have their place in the higher social economy, 
not immediately as such, but as they become mentally 
naturalized. So men come and go, and populations change, 
but institutions abide, and preserve their character, if they 
use their privilege. 

But without doubt the chief cause of the homogeneous 
character of the colleges lies in the simplicity of their 
function, namely, to teach. I am about to borrow the 
distinction which John Henry Newman J has made at 
this point, though with a large qualification. He draws, 
as you recall, the careful distinction between the diffusion 
or extension of knowledge and its advancement. The 
advancement of knowledge he assigns to institutions like 
the Royal Academies of Italy and France, or the British 
Association ; the diffusion or extension of knowledge, to 
the universities. In the comparative absence of such 
societies as exist abroad for the advancement of learning, 
we have assigned that task largely to the universities, and 
the teaching function more exclusively to the colleges. 
Or, to be more exact, we relegate to the secondary school 
the early disciplinary work, the formation of habits of 
study, the actual making of the mind ; we carry over 
something of this disciplinary work to the college, and 
assign to it the further task of expanding, liberalizing, 
and informing, — the teaching function : we carry over 
much of this function to the university, and commit to it 

1 Preface to The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 21 

the special business of research, investigation, discovery, — 
the absolute advancement of learning. Now, while some 
such division of intellectual labor actually exists, and 
applies as indicated to the college, it must be accepted 
with this broad qualification. No man is fully prepared 
to teach, in the sense of communicating knowledge, who is 
not himself at work at the sources. Professors are not 
mere intermediaries. Contrary to the assertion of Cardi- 
nal Newman, elsewhere expressed, that to discover and to 
teach are separate functions seldom united in the same 
person, I believe that discovery stimulates teaching, and 
that teaching necessitates discovery. The teaching ideal 
is undergoing a very radical change. The ideal of yes- 
terday was the man of many and easy accomplishments. 
The ideal of to-day is the man of single-minded, thorough, 
and if possible original, knowledge. Doubtless we may 
go to our own extreme, but we cannot return to the former 
pattern. 

There has been preserved on our files the original 
" Agreement " between the first president Wheelock, 
acting for the trustees, and Mr. John Smith, one of the 
early tutors, who was promoted to the professorship of 
languages in the college. The agreement begins as 
follows : " Mr. Smith agrees to settle as Professor of 
English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, etc., in Dart- 
mouth College, to teach which, and as many of these and 
other such languages as he shall understand, or as the 
Trustees shall judge necessary and practicable for one 
man, and also to read lectures on these as often as the 
President and tutors with himself shall judge profitable 
for the Seminary." This is not precisely the model of 
the later agreements. Within the limited time which I 
have been able to devote to the interests of the college 
since my election to the presidency, it has been my spe- 
cial aim to promote the twofold object of extending the 
departments and dividing the labor ; and the policy thus 



22 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

indicated will be pushed to the utmost limit which the 
funds of the college will permit. As I conceive the situa- 
tion, the greatest incentive to good teaching is time to 
study. Apart from the immaturity of far too large a 
proportion in the teaching force in some of our colleges, 
nothing is so much to be deplored as the wasteful over- 
working of the maturer minds in a faculty. And this 
I say, not now in the interest of university work, but 
in the interest of college work. Teaching is that divine 
art which takes its authority and its inspiration from the 
certainty and the abundance of the thing known. The 
glorious gift of communication, even when most personal, 
is always proportionate to the conscious reserves of know- 
ledge. The personality of a teacher, what is it? Not 
the man himself, but the man living at the heart and in 
the secret of nature, of history, of literature, of truth. 
And what is teaching, except making or letting nature 
itself speak to the asking mind — and history, and litera- 
ture, and truth ? Here is the relation of master and 
scholar, paraphrased in the matchless words of the older 
Scriptures, " him that awaketh and him that answereth." 
And this is the distinctive function of the college, re- 
search, investigation, discovery, with time and facilities 
for their accomplishment, but all tributary to the one 
supreme end of teaching. 

If I may now assume that I have shown that the dis- 
tinction of the college lies in its homogeneity, and that I 
have rightly interpreted the causes which are at work to 
preserve that distinction, we are ready to take up the next 
part of our question and ask, What is the capacity of the 
college to meet the widening demands of the new educa- 
tion? Is there anything in the subject-matter, or method, 
or general discipline, introduced by the new education, 
which excludes the historic college from a share in it, or 
remands it to an inferior place ? The answer to this ques- 
tion changes somewhat our point of view. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 23 

Thus far we have been concerned more with the contrast 
between the college and the university. We shall now 
be concerned more with the contrast between the college 
and the school of technology. Yet for the moment we 
remain in the former field. By long tradition there are 
certain subjects requiring continued and specialized treat- 
ment which have been put quite without and beyond the 
college curriculum. These subjects have been chiefly con- 
nected with the great professions. It is now to be noted 
that there is a tendency to throw back a considerable 
amount of elementary work from the professional schools 
into the colleges. Allowance is made both in time and 
in the larger choice of studies, in the schools of medicine 
and of theology, and in some cases of law, for those who 
have taken elementary courses in the colleges. A college 
student may, if the college so provides, elect his way, up 
to a certain point, into a professional school. But for the 
most part the subject-matter of the professional schools | 
must be altogether different from that of the college. 

Exception must also be made in reference to those sub- 
jects which are still in too tentative a form to offer proper 
material for instruction. Subjects are to-day under inves- 
tigation in the universities which are as yet unorganized 
and unformulated, but which, when organized and formu- 
lated, will take their place in the college curriculum. Ex- 
amples of subjects which have just passed this stage, and 
are now beginning to find their way into the colleges, are 
to be found in several of the branches of natural and so- 
cial science. We have here a pertinent illustration of the 
work of the university as related to that of the college. 
It is one function of the university to develop and organ- 
ize new subject-matter for the college curriculum. 

But the chief question at this point, as I have intimated, 
is in regard to the relation of the college to the new sub- 
jects, chiefly in the natural and physical sciences, for which 
special provision is now being made through the schools 



24 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

of technology. What ought to be the attitude of the col- 
lege toward the subjects of the new learning, and toward 
the method of the new training? My answer is twofold, 
and equally positive in both parts. The college needs the 
new education in subject-matter and in method, and the 
new education needs the discipline of the college. 

In saying that the college needs the newer subjects, and 
the methods which they bring with them, I am speaking in 
behalf of what we term a liberal education. If by that term 
we mean the education which enlarges and disciplines the 
mind irrespective of the after business or profession, then 
we cannot ignore or omit the training which attends the 
exact study of nature. The broader and finer qualities 
which belong to the habit of careful observation, the 
patient search for the immediate and sufficient cause of 
phenomena, the imagination which creates working hy- 
potheses along which the mind theorizes its way into the 
realm of fact, — these certainly are the qualities of an edu- 
cated mind. We may not be able to subscribe entirely to 
the statement, but we cannot fail to see a certain reason- 
ableness in the claim of Yirchow, that " mathematics, phi- 
losophy, and the natural sciences give the young minds so 
firm an intellectual preparation that they can easily make 
themselves at home in any department of learning." 

Certainly unexpected results have already followed from 
the scientific training. No one would have ventured to 
prophesy that one result would be the art of literary ex- 
pression. Yet such has been the case. With few excep- 
tions, the greater scientists among us are taking their place 
in literature. They are recovering the original qualities I 
of style, simplicity, clearness, vividness. Some of them I 
have caught with remarkably close ear the accents of the 
English tongue. The literary development of the scien- 
tists has been as unexpected as the absence of the philo- 
sophical temper. 

Or, if by a liberal education we mean the introduction 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 25 

to the broader ranges of thought, we cannot leave out the 
study of nature, or of man as a part of nature. Notwith- 
standing some of the materializing effects of this study, it 
has its own office in the humanizing and even spiritual- 
izing of the human intellect. " I have never been able," 
President Eliot has said in these reverent words, " to find \ 
any better answer to the question, What is the chief end of 
studying nature ? than the answer which the Westminster 
Catechism gives to the question, What is the chief end of., 
man ? — namely, to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." 
Bred as I was in the old learning, and loyal to it as I am 
in all my feeling, my professional observation has taught 
me the value of that type of mind which is formed by the 
study of the natural sciences. I have learned to welcome 
the methods of thinking, the point of view, a reality in 
the apprehension of truth, although more restricted in its 
range, which have characterized the students of theology, 
whom I have known, who have had the scientific habit. 
And if I were to repeat my professional training, while 
keeping as before in the old courses., I should not omit to 
gain the clear and careful knowledge of some one of the 
sciences as a part of the better discipline which is now 
possible to the Christian ministry. 

Of course the very practical problem arises, Where is 
the room for the old and the new ? The sufficient and only 
answer to this problem is the elective system. Under a 
complete and continuous prescribed course the college 
must shut out the new, or give a smattering of the old 
and new. The elective system, if properly regulated and 
consistently applied, insures thoroughness within a rea- 
sonable variety of study. But the elective system is not a V 
mere expedient. It holds a principle. One part of the 
college discipline is the development of the power of intel- 
ligent choice. The only question is in regard to the proper / 
time at which the choice is to be made. And here, I 
think, the answer is not to be found in the nature of 



26 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

the studies, provided the order and succession is rightly 
guarded, but in the student himself, the average student. 
Experience may modify my present view, but I am not 
now prepared to advise the opening of the courses at en- 
trance upon college. The necessary condition of an intel- 
ligent choice, as it seems to me, is a certain familiarity 
with college methods and opportunities, as compared with 
those of the previous schools. Otherwise the student may 
fall back too much upon his advisers, the habit of advising 
developing in turn into a veritable system of paternalism, 
and thus defeating the whole disciplinary end of an elec- 
tion. 

Thus far the need on the part of the college of the new 
education. I am equally confident that the new education 
in its more advanced form needs the discipline of the col- 
lege. Mere specialization can offer no equivalent to the 
advantage of a liberal education followed by specialized 
study and work. Science itself must inevitably suffer 
from such a course in the long result, in the reputation of 
scientists, in the validity of their conclusions, at least to 
minds otherwise trained, and in the actual scientific pro- 
duct. And as respects those who enter the various scien- 
tific professions, I cannot see how they can take rank with 
men in the other professions, who first liberalize and then 
specialize, except by a like course. This is not the opinion 
simply of an advocate of a college training. The senior 
professor of our own Thayer School of Civil Engineering 
had said in a report : " Those who desire to study civil 
engineering are strongly urged to take a full collegiate 
course, either on a classical or scientific basis. In addi- 
tion to the knowledge of the special preparatory subjects 
above named, the student will thus obtain a broad and 
liberal training, which in civil engineering, as in other 
professions, constitutes a preparation of the highest value." 
The " Engineering News " of May 26, 1892, commenting 
editorially on these words, characterizes them as " golden 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 27 

words, which we could wish that every engineering school 
would adopt and make permanent," and then adds, " The 
graduate who knows nothing but engineering, and has no 
knowledge of letters and general culture to aid him, has an 
up-hill road before him." 

The technical schools, which offer low terms of admis- 
sion, and which afford no wide provision for general cul- 
ture, may be admirable schools of apprenticeship, but they 
are not strictly scientific schools. And in so far as the 
tendency in some of the higher schools of technology is 
toward greater specialization, the college must offer its 
own scientific courses as a corrective. These courses are 
altogether theoretical. The work of the laboratory is not 
that of the workshop ; neither does it take its place. The 
claim of the college is that the theoretical knowledge of 
the sciences, properly related to other kinds of theoretical 
knowledge, should precede the specialized application of 
the sciences. It is not assumed that this theoretical know- 
ledge prepares one for his business or profession. There 
is no reason why a college graduate should not take a 
practical graduate course in a technical school. He may 
do that, or serve his apprenticeship in connection with one 
of the great industries. It is granted that one or the other 
is necessary. The college does not assume to make imme- 
diate connection with engineering or manufacturing, any 
more than with the practice of law or medicine. 

The comparison of the college with the technical school 
brings out the fact that, while the capacity of the college 
seems to be enlarging so that it covers an increasing terri- 
tory, its function remains single and undisturbed. It is 
always and everywhere the function of the college to give 
a liberal education, beyond which and out of which the 
process of specialization may go on in any direction and 
to any extent. The college must continually adjust itself 
to make proper connection with every kind of specialized 
work, not to do it. This very simple but very great func- 



28 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

tion of a college is at present confused, I think needlessly- 
confused, by the variety of the degrees which it confers. 
I will not now pause to argue the matter, but I will ex- 
press the conviction that the time will come when the le- 
gitimate work of the college will be represented by one 
degree : by which statement I mean, on the one hand, that 
the college will gradually come to do a work through every 
possible combination of courses open to a student, which 
will entitle him, as he takes it, to be known as a liberally 
educated man without any differentiation from his fellows ; 
and, on the other hand, that opinions will gradually become 
so equalized in respect to the relative value of the different 
studies which find place in the college curriculum that it 
will be acknowledged that the college has but one stand- 
ard, and represents through its degree a single and com- 
plete unit in education. 

It remains to consider that part of our question which 
I have said was largely local, and yet which I trust may 
be of interest to those of other colleges who are present, 
namely, what relation may a college sustain to associated 
institutions without assuming the functions of a university? 
In answering this question I pass from whatever is theo- 
retical to that which is historical. The policy of Dart- 
mouth College in this matter is written in its history. 
The history of Dartmouth College may teach any like 
institution, which cares to learn the lesson, how not to 
become a university. If any college has been tempted in 
this regard, Dartmouth more. I will try to tell briefly 
the story of its refusals, and also to show what it has 
done, and what it proposes to do, in place of becoming a 
university. 

Naturally I might be expected to dwell upon the en- 
forced attempt to change the college into a State univer- 
sity; but as this attempt represented the design of the State 
to gain possession of the college, rather than to change its 
essential nature, I pass it by. It is the somewhat remark- 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 29 

able succession of opportunities to develop from within 
into an aggregation of professional and technical schools 
to which I desire to call attention. 1 

One of the earliest benefactions to the college was an 
endowment towards a chair of divinity bearing the hon- 
ored name of John Phillips. The chair has been vari- 
ously utilized in connection with the religious instruction 
of the college ; but when it is remembered that the pious 
intention of Samuel Phillips, the nephew of the donor, 
expressed in establishing Phillips Academy at Andover, 
was made the occasion of developing a theological semi- 
nary in connection with that institution, it is not unwar- 
ranted to suppose that Dartmouth College might easily 
have had a like development. 

In 1798 the trustees of the college voted that " a pro- 
fessor be appointed whose duty it shall be to deliver pub- 
lic lectures upon anatomy, surgery, chemistry, materia 
medica, and the theory and practice of physic, and that 
said professor be entitled to receive payment for instruc- 
tion in those branches, as hereinafter mentioned, as com- 
pensation for his services in thatjoffice." In accordance 
with this vote such a professor was appointed, lectures 

1 The term " university " is used in what follows in the traditional 
American sense, — an aggregation of professional schools usually cen- 
tering around a college. The form in which the university idea is 
now developing most rapidly is best represented by the degree of 
Ph. D. In the use of method it is difficult to distinguish the uni- j 
versity from the college, except in degree. The principle of electives, 
supplemented by full facilities for individual research and investiga- 
tion, gives approximately the results gained by the methods in use 
at the universities. The extent to which this method may be carried 
in graduate work, in a college like Dartmouth, will depend entirely 
upon the endowments which may be secured to this end. The actual 
value of graduate work to a student depends upon the time which 
can be spared on the part of professors from their undergraduate 
work, or to the number of men who can be introduced into a faculty 
with this end in view, with an equipment in libraries and labratories 
to correspond. 



30 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

were given, a code of medical statutes was adopted, and 
degrees were conferred, by Dartmouth College, first of 
Bachelor of Medicine, and afterwards of Doctor of Medi- 
cine. This action seems like the initiative toward a uni- 
versity, and it might fairly be so construed, were it not 
that the subsequent history of the Medical School has 
hardly justified such a relation to the college. Practi- 
cally the administration of its affairs is in the hands of 
its faculty. The State has a property interest in the 
school, so that it is known as the New Hampshire Medi- 
cal College as well as Dartmouth Medical College. And 
recently its interests have become specially identified with 
the Mary Hitchcock Hospital, a distinct corporation. As, 
however, the question of the status of the Medical School 
is now before the legal committee of the board of trus- 
tees, I will not anticipate their report. I am, however, 
prepared to say that, whatever may prove to be the exact 
legal relation between the two bodies, the college proposes 
to give to the Medical School the fullest and most direct 
material aid in its power. The evidence of this is to be 
found in the proposed enlargement of the department of 
chemistry through an increase in its equipment, and in the 
establishment of the department of zoology. With these 
increased advantages on the side of the college, and with 
the very unusual facilities offered by the Mary Hitchcock 
Hospital, it is believed that the Medical School will not 
only maintain its exceedingly honorable history up to the 
present time, but that it will also demonstrate the practi- 
cability of a medical college in the country. 

Chief Justice Joel Parker, of the class of 1811, for a 
long time Poyall Professor of Law in Harvard University, 
contemplated the founding of a Law School in connection 
with the college. To this end he bequeathed to the col- 
lege his law library, a considerable landed estate in Vir- 
ginia, and property to the value of $60,000. When the 
bequest came into the possession of the trustees, it seemed 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 31 

inadvisable to them to establish a law department. Hap- 
pily the terms of the will, as interpreted by them and by 
the executors, allowed the use of the money for purposes 
germane to the intent of the donor, within the college cur- 
riculum. It was therefore decided to apply the bequest 
to the endowment of a Parker Professorship of Law and 
Political Science, and to kindred uses. 

In 1851 the faculty received from the will of Mr. Abiel 
Chandler, of Boston, the sum of $ 50,000 for " the estab- 
lishment of a permanent department, or school of instruc- 
tion, in the college in the practical and useful arts of life." 
Two special provisions accompanied the bequest : first, the 
establishment of a perpetual board of visitors, who should 
" have full power to determine, interpret, and explain " 
the intentions of the bequest ; and, second, a clause to the 
effect that "no other or higher preparatory studies are to 
be required, in order to enter said department or school, 
than are pursued in the common schools of New Eng- 
land." At the first meeting of the trustees following the 
gift, they proceeded to " constitute and organize a school 
of instruction in connection with the college and as a de- 
partment thereof, the said school to be denominated The 
Chandler School of Science and the Arts." At first the 
school covered only a two years' course. Gradually the 
curriculum was extended, the faculty was enlarged, and 
other endowments were received. Meanwhile students 
were constantly presenting themselves prepared beyond 
the requirements for entrance. It was also found that a 
very considerable amount of work was duplicated between 
the professors of the college and those of the Chandler 
School. After conferences between a committee of the 
trustees and the two faculties, the trustees decided to 
ask the visitors, as interpreters of the will of Mr. Chan- 
dler, the following questions : first, whether under the will 
the standard of the school can be so high that its dis- 
cipline and scholarship shall be equal to that of the other 



32 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

department of the college, and, as a condition to this, 
whether the terms of admission can be made to require 
such attainments in the modern languages and scientific 
studies that students entering shall already have a good 
degree of mental discipline and attainments ; and, second, 
whether the condition of the will establishing a " depart- 
ment or school in the college " is met by the maintenance 
of a department and course of instruction in the college, 
without such a separate classification of students as would 
require them to be made responsible to a purely separate 
faculty. The visitors, in a careful and elaborate opinion, 
answered these questions in the affirmative, interpreting 
the clause in the will referring to the common schools 
of New England to include the high schools which pre- 
pare for college. Acting upon this decision, a plan was 
adopted which will go into effect the ensuing year, whereby 
the Chandler School is more formally incorporated into 
the college as the Chandler scientific course, carrying with 
it, as before, the degree of B. S. Through this incorpora- 
tion the endowment from the Chandler fund, now amount- 
ing to about $175,000, is brought into more economical 
adjustment to the funds of the college, though the fund 
will be kept distinct ; four professors are added to the 
college faculty, and a considerable body of students to 
the college enrollment. 

The Thayer School of Civil Engineering and of Archi- 
tecture was established in 1871, during the lifetime of the 
founder, by General Sylvanus Thayer, of the United States 
Corps of Engineers, a graduate of the college in 1807. 
The various sums given for the school aggregate $70,000. 
The college simply holds these funds in trust. It has no 
control of the school. Its management is vested in a 
board of five overseers, which is self-perpetuating, except 
that the president of the college is the president of the 
board. The school covers a course of two years, and rep- 
resents entirely the higher grades of study in civil engi- 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 33 

neering. Connection has, however, been made with the 
scientific course of the college, so that it is possible for a 
student by careful election of his studies to take the col- 
lege and engineering courses in five years, the senior year 
in the college counting under certain rigid conditions as 
the first year in the Thayer School. 

In 1866 the legislature of New Hampshire passed an 
act establishing the " New Hampshire College of Agricul- 
ture and the Mechanic Arts," on the basis of the congres- 
sional land grant, and located the college at Hanover, and 
in connection with Dartmouth College. This connection 
was in the form of a specific contract, terminable on one 
year's notice by either party at the expiration of fourteen 
years. In 1891 the State was induced by the terms of * 
the large bequest of Mr. Benjamin Thompson, a native of 
Durham, to remove the Agricultural College to that place. 
The buildings which it occupied while located at Hanover 
have now become the property of Dartmouth College, 
partly by purchase, and partly by the virtual remission 
by the State of its interest of 115,000 in Culver Hall. 

I may be permitted to congratulate the trustees and 
faculty of the Agricultural College, and the State, upon 
the acceptance by the Reverend Charles S. Murkland of i 
the presidency of the college, and to extend to him in his / 
own person, and in that which he represents, the most 
cordial greetings of Dartmouth College. I may be per- 
mitted to express also the conviction that there is abundant 
room within the State for the two institutions, so distinct 
in their methods and aims ; and, more than this, that they 
should be mutually helpful in advancing the educational 
interests of the State. And I doubt not that the State, 
recognizing this fact, will hold itself in readiness at all 
times to do whatever is fitting and right to advance alike 
their interests. 

From this brief survey of the actual course which the 
college has pursued in its relation to associated institu- 
3 



L.ofC. 



34 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

tions, or to plans for such institutions, you can determine 
at once its policy. That policy has not always been defi- 
nitely expressed, perhaps not always clearly conceived, but 
it has been historically consistent. The college has always 
been willing to accept in trust such funds as have been 
confided to it for purposes related to its own, though not 
precisely the same, and to see to it that the intent of the 
donor was carried out in strict fidelity. It has been ready 
to incorporate into its own life such interests as have been 
attached to it, whenever such incorporation has seemed to 
be of mutual advantage. And it has sought to strengthen 
and support any other foundation which could be built up 
to the better advantage of each in comparative indepen- 
dence. Dartmouth College has not been ambitious to 
become a university in name or in fact. The college has 
been, and is, and will be, ambitious to stand, with its in- 
creasing years and in its enlarging strength, as the type 
of the historic college. 

I have now said what I intended to say in respect to 
the present place of the historic college in our educational 
system as it is becoming more clearly defined. Each col- 
lege has its own questions of readjustment and develop- 
ment. Within the past year the phrase has become cur- 
rent amongst us, — the new Dartmouth. I interpret the 
phrase to express our decision and our enthusiasm in the 
work to which we are called in the readjustment and 
development of Dartmouth. And yet let me say at once, 
we cannot make too great an ackuowledgment of that 
which has been done before. The chiefest factor in the 
new will be the old. Each administration of the college, 
from the first to the last, has made its own contribution, 
more often than otherwise in self-denial and sacrifice. 
We build upon strong and wide foundations. More than 
this, the very resources with which we at least begin to 
build represent the earnings of a past generation, not of 
our own, — the accumulations which have been waiting 
in trust for our use. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 35 

Still, whatever may be the relative place of the past 
and the present in the existing situation, there are aspects 
of it which are new, new not only in opportunity but also 
in advantage and responsibility. For the first time in its 
history the college is practically under the government of 
its alumni. The government of the college is vested in a 
single board of twelve members, and, excluding the presi- 
dent of the college and the governor of the State, one half 
of the remaining number are directly nominated and virtu- 
ally elected by the alumni, — a larger proportion than in 
any college in New England and probably in the country. 
The advantage of this responsible representation will de- 
pend upon the character, the educational and business 
qualifications, and the personal time available for the col- 
lege, on the part of the alumni trustees, and also and 
equally upon the spirit of unity, of cooperation, and of 
active loyalty which it assumes in the alumni at large. I 
draw no unwarranted inferences from this action in re- 
spect either to men or money. I make no unreasonable 
demands upon the alumni. Not every alumnus who has 
a son to be educated can send him here. Not every alum- 
nus who has money to give can put it here. I recognize 
other obligations. And yet in these and innumerable 
ways an interested alumni will make their interest tribu- 
tary to the college. In the breadth of the opportunity it 
is scarcely possible to go amiss. And something can be 
done in collective ways. The many can unite for com- 
mon ends. The younger alumni have begun with ath-j 
letics. They have already fitted up one of the best ath- 
letic fields in the country at a cost of $15,000, and are now 
preparing to renovate and equip the gymnasium at a like 
cost. The beginning thus made has been appropriate 
and helpful. Athletics have a rightful place in the mod- 
ern college. They represent a discipline, a culture, an 
enthusiasm, which are a part of the college life. Let a 
wise and generous provision be made for this interest, not 



36 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

as a concession, not as a means to some ulterior end, but 
in recognition of one of the varied elements which go to 
make up the training and the culture of the college-bred 
man. 

There are certain other objects for which appeal must 
be made to the alumni collectively. I mention one which 
I will allow at once to make its own appeal, an appeal for 
which it would be a shame to ask a penny from any one 
without the alumni, for which no one alumnus ought to 
have the privilege of giving alone ; namely, the preserva- 
tion and reconstruction, according to the proposed plan, 
of Dartmouth Hall, — Dartmouth Hall, which, more than 
all else, gathers up into itself the traditions and memories 
of the old college. 1 

It is also new in the history of the college that the 
opportunity has come for a symmetrical enlargement. 
The progress of the college has been continuous and 
steady. Each period has added its own proportion to the 

1 It now seems probable that Dartmouth Hall may be preserved 
as a dormitory, and at the proper time reconstructed, without change 
in its outward appearance, to this end. Should this plan be adopted 
by the trustees, the alumni will be asked to erect a memorial or 
alumni hall, in which may be gathered all material connected with, 
or illustrative of, the history of the college. The college already has 
in its possession over one hundred portraits of its distinguished 
alumni, collected largely through the efforts of the Hon. Benjamin T. 
Prescott, of the class of 1856, and since 1879 a trustee of the college. 
These are at present on the upper floor of the stack-room of the 
library. They should be placed where they can be immediately ac- 
cessible. They should be a part of the daily life of the college. The 
walls of the hall should be prepared for the placing of tablets to the 
memory of the sons of Dartmouth who fell in the defense of the 
Union. Colonel Hiram B. Crosby, of the class of 1854, has provided 
an appropriate tablet to the memory of his classmate, Colonel Frank- 
lin A. Haskell, which will be placed temporarily on the walls of the 
library at the present Commencement. The attention of the alumni 
is earnestly invited to the plan of erecting an alumni hall. Allow- 
ance will be made for such a building in the plans which the trustees 
are now forming for new buildings. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 37 

inheritance. But the additions have been made one by 
one, and at comparatively long intervals. The opportu- 
nity is now at hand to enlarge with more symmetry be- 
cause with more relative completeness. This is chiefly 
owing to the general fund which has been in long waiting 
for the college in the Wentworth bequest, but which now 
becomes available, under the recent appraisal, in two 
years. Meanwhile the State has very generously antici- 
pated in part the first income which we may expect to 
derive from the estate by an appropriation of $ 7,500 for 
each of the next two years. The annual income from the 
Wentworth fund will be at first about 810,000, which 
will gradually increase to a final annual income of from 
120,000 to 125,000. By this addition to our income we 
are enabled to establish certain chairs of instruction which 
will avail to enlarge and complete, for the present, some 
of the departments of the college ; though this addition 
cannot at the best accomplish all that the college now 
needs in the way of instruction, and of course its wants 
will steadily increase. It is also to be understood that a 
part of the income from this fund is to go to the increase 
of the salaries of the professors. 

The Butterfield bequest opens the way to a proper 
grouping of the departments. It provides a home and 
suitable support for the department it creates. It is my 
desire to see each of the general departments in a sepa- 
rate building ; or, when this is not altogether necessary, 
that allied departments shall be brought together in the 
same building, and provided with proper facilities for 
their work. Suitable reference libraries in connection 
with recitation and lecture rooms are as necessary to suc- 
cessful teaching in the literary departments as are labo- 
ratories in the scientific department. 

The material improvement of the college presents both 
an opportunity and a problem. The beginning of the 
problem has been most happily solved by the harmonious 



38 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

cooperation of the precinct with the college in introducing 
a sufficient supply of water into the town at an estimated 
cost of $60,000. The town is already supplied in part 
with pure drinking water, and with a sewerage system. 

But the question of the location of new buildings in 
other than an isolated and haphazard arrangement offers 
great perplexities. The village of Hanover is so compact 
that there is no vacant room for a proper grouping of 
buildings for convenience or architectural effect. The 
building committee of the trustees is at work upon this 
problem under the best professional advice, and is agreed 
that no building shall be erected until a plan has been 
prepared and adopted which will secure a convenient and 
harmonious arrangement of such buildings as the college 
is likely to need and obtain within a somewhat extended 
future. 

That, however, which contributes most largely to the 
present advantage of the college is the very thing which 
it shares with all the colleges, namely, the general advance 
in educational methods and appliances. I return for the 
moment to the idea with which I began, that this is an 
educational epoch. The educational spirit is abroad, in- 
forming and stimulating the intelligence of the country ; 
the facilities for good teaching are becoming more abun- 
dant and more available ; and, what is of far greater value, 
the material for good teachers is rapidly increasing 
through the attendance of students for graduate work 
upon our own or foreign universities. So wide and abun- 
dant is the provision for higher education that no one col- 
lege can gain anything at the expense of any other. The 
colleges are moving abreast and in inspiring fellowship. 

Gentlemen of the college, of the past and of the pres- 
ent ; as we in our own persons increase in years, though 
it may be for long time with augmenting strength, we 
know the inevitable limit. The life of an individual can- 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 39 

not attain to the dignity of history. The approach to 
that dignity marks the lessening of one's future. It is 
not so with the life of a great institution. The historic 
college moves on from generation to generation into its 
illimitable future. Each generation waits to pour into 
its life the warmth and richness of its own, and depart- 
ing bequeaths to it the earnings of its strength. The 
college lives because nourished and fed from the unfailing 
sources of personal devotion. 

I congratulate you, gentlemen, as the living embodi- 
ment of the college, upon the present signs of personal de- 
votion to Dartmouth. It is evidently as true now as when 
the words were uttered, — " There are those who love it." 
May there be now and always the like wisdom in those 
who are called to serve it. If that can be assured, — and 
may God grant it, — the place of Dartmouth College in 
American letters and learning is as secure for the future 
as in the past. 




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